Now that you have had a chance to experience science education as it actually occurs, it might be useful for you to reflect on the role that you want inquiry to play in your own classroom. Before you do this, please look back on the resources and results from questions 3 and 4 from our inquiry jigsaw activity from last semester. After this review answer the following questions:
- After considering the expectations for classroom inquiry presented in state and national standards what do you think you will try to do in your own classroom?
- In my own classroom, I plan on using inquiry often. Inquiry not just opens eyes, but opens interest. With this interest, students are paying attention, and attention is important, because learning can not take place without it.I want to use inquiry in many labs, or experiments. Sometime students have trouble using inquiry because they always think they are doing something wrong, so I plan on using guided inquiry at first, then gradually taking away supports until they are fully working on their own. I also would like to use inquiry activities to introduce new ideas, topics or units. I find that it is very helpful to have this learning activity to talk about and keep bring up the remainder of the unit. It is something where you can constantly say "remember when you......" and most will remember and will always have this experience to relate to.
- What resources and other forms of support do you think would be useful in order to be able to support classroom inquiry during your early years of teaching?
- Some resources that I will find helpful, is first and foremost teachers that I work with! many of them are a never ending source of ideas, activities, and resources. Many of them have come form different places, and also have been teaching for much longer than I have, so they are people that I always look to for assistance.
- Another resource that would be helpful is a budget! I am aware that many first year teachers don't necessarily have money to spend because a lot of times it is spent the prior year for the current year, but some sort of budget could be used for materials. Many activities could be done with materials that are easy to find, or without materials, but it could help out and lead to creative inquiry activities.
- Yet another resource that I could use is students from this class, and this wikispace! Many students have posted great ideas, and also explained what worked and didn't, and even offer suggestions! What better a resource than a constant flow of teachers and students in one place, even though they live in separate places! I plan on using it often.